GOP framing debate on Off Shore Drilling, as McCain $$ from Oil goes Up

[G_j]

It seems some Dems are "compromising" and perhaps Obama too?

The GOP were the major instigators of this situation,
Starting with Reagan's immediate gutting of Carter's energy policy.
Oil loves Republicans, Republicans love oil

Now as Bush and McCain lead a charge to frame the debate about oil prices, and make it about off shore drilling,
many cave, & are suckered into accepting the bogus GOP BS frame.
They are winning, just by framing the debate again. Why?


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www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/26/AR2008072601891.html

Industry Gushed Money After Reversal on Drilling

By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 27, 2008; Page A10

Campaign contributions from oil industry executives to Sen. John McCain rose dramatically in the last half of June, after the senator from Arizona made a high-profile split with environmentalists and reversed his opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling.

Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May.

McCain said the policy reversal came as a response to rising voter anger over soaring energy prices. At the time, about three-quarters of voters responding to a Washington Post-ABC News poll said prices at the pump were causing them financial hardship, the highest in surveys this decade.


Opening vast stretches of the country's coastline to oil exploration would help America eliminate its dependence on foreign oil, McCain said.

"We have untapped oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production," he said. "It is time for the federal government to lift these restriction

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/07/26/ST2008072602046.html?sid=ST2008072602046&pos=bottom

Oil May Become GOP's 2008 Issue
Cost of Gas Touches a Chord With Voters

By Michael D. Shear and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 27, 2008; Page A10

Four-dollar-a-gallon gas has done something that few Republicans thought possible just a few months ago: given them hope.

United behind a renewed push for offshore oil drilling, Republican members of Congress and the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, think they have found their best political issue of the 2008 campaign.

McCain strategists and GOP leaders on Capitol Hill say the issue, which polls suggest Americans favor by healthy margins, lets Republicans demonstrate their plans to address the anger over high gas prices as well as the broader economic distress that many voters feel.

Because most Democrats, including Sen. Barack Obama, are opposed to increased drilling, McCain and the GOP have already begun casting their rivals as unconcerned about gas prices and unwilling to wean the country from foreign oil.

"The failure of Senator Obama to understand the need to increase domestic production is just stunning, and that's going to be a real hurdle for him to overcome, because everybody gets it," said Nancy Pfotenhauer, a senior McCain adviser.

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[whistle]

1. Well you see the GOP is proposing very specific programs for their

...constituents the 25 Big Oil Corporations who just last month gave McCain over $845,000.00 in campaign funding and McCain comes right back and delivers what they want.

What does the democratic party which has the majority in both Houses of Congress do to fight back? The whine and complain, but let the republicans get both the money and the credit for delivering to Big Oil.

Big Oil already has thousands of undeveloped off-shore and National Parks reserves drilling rights leases that remain dominant. The democrats should make it clear that before new leases are allowed existing areas must be tapped and reserves established. If leases are not tapped within a certain time-frame, then the companies have to turn those back and loose their rights.